Posted By Karl Curtis It is sad reflection of todays society that I am pestered almost on a weekly basis by a variety of ambulance chasers hanging around outside my local supermarket. "Had an accident at work mate? Do you have any aches from lifting or working at your computer?" Ahhh I never knew so many people cared about my personal well being until now. "Dont worry mate we'll sort out all your legal fees even if you lose" What chance is there of that? The every fact that they will take your case on knows that they are on to a winner. I turn on commecial radio and they hound me I turn on commercial TV and there they are again. It seems like these days we are not happy unless we can find someone to blame for a minor misfortune we suffer which in many instances is largely down to our own mistakes. Yet we still need someone to blame and more importantly to pay up. Yes youve probably guessed it now. I work for an insurance company and guess what! many insurers are now looking to pull out of providing EL insurance due to the level of claim activity. Yes i know that we must shoulder some of the blame for this culture by not going to court and fighting more of the more dubious cases.But after all when you take extortionate legal fees into account its a lot cheaper to buy it off isn't it.(Im being sarcastic now) Ultimately if insurers stop writing EL coverage and lets remember employers are legally obliged to provide the cover what will happen then? I suppose the Government will step in and massively increase taxes or ask employers to contribute to a special insurance pool to cover compensation costs. I think some of us will be in for a very large shock if this happens as companies could be paying more than 10 times what they presently pay for EL cover. Perhaps I could claim that these people are in fact giving me depression and did they adequately assess (in writing)the effect their actions would have on my well being? Hey Ive just thought of something perhaps I could ask one of them nice guys who hang around my supermaket about my chance of getting some compensation.........on second thoughts.............

Posted By David Scott Whilst I agree with all said so far, as a Health and Safety Manager I would love to see more posts available for us to fill however, I do not think that it is our job to 'manage' health and safety as suggested by Paul. This is very much ALL managers, supervisors and individuals jobs to do! It is our job to advise, coax and train those people in the right ways of doing things and being the middleman between the Corporate Body and the Employee. Not the best of positions to be in really. The problem lies very much with the way that peoples attitudes have changed. Not long ago everyone knew what their 'responsibilities' were but today they only know their 'rights'. This is also the fault of Government in relaxing the advertising standards such that solicitors can now openly advertise and tout for business. I must also agree that insurers have played a major role in advising that an employer 'should pay up as it won't effect your premium too much!'. This spreads around the factory floor and before we know it you have the 'claim culture'. I must say also that as a H&S manager, if the Company 'cocked it up', I will support any individual, but there must also be the return for this in that individuals must follow the rules and law. Only recently I had to interview a claimnant from the factory floor and she stated that 'as a member of the Union she may as well put a claim in as the Company doesn't pay it, the Insurance Company does!'. Also, what sort of message does it send out when people eat nothing but fast food and get fat or spill hot coffee on them then make calims against the supplier!! This is rules gone mad! I remember and old adage that 'Rules and Laws are there for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of idiots' Whatever has happened to all the wise men!!!!

Posted By Paul Craythorne David, If you read my posting properly you would see that I called for an increase in H&S personnel to manage H&S better. I was not in anyway suggesting that it is the sole responsibility of H&S professionals to manage H&S. Give me some credit, I have been doing this bloody job for 13 years!!!!! Paul

Posted By Graham Bullough Here are several thoughts, for what they are worth, on the issues raised by Karl and other responders so far. Firstly it seems that much of the UK compensation culture has been an undesirable import from the USA where nobody seems to have any responsibility for their own safety and can even successfully claim compensation for self inflicted misfortune. One example I read about recently concerned a man who bought a large motor home. On his first drive along a motorway he set the cruise control at 70mph, got out of the driver's seat and went in the back to make a cup of coffee. Subsequently the vehicle veered off the motorway and crashed. He successfully sued the makers because the handbook did not advise drivers not to leave the driver's seat while the vehicle was moving! He was awarded $1,750,000 plus a new vehicle. The makers changed their handbook after the court case just in case any other complete morons bought their vehicles! Secondly, most people in the UK don't understand insurance. A cynical view I've heard more than once is that insurance companies actually never pay for anything. What they really do is recycle the money they receive in the form of hefty premiums. Also employers nowadays are generally subject to significant excesses (e.g. £100,000) for each and every claim under Employer's Liability and Public Liability insurance. Thus, employers have to self-insure for most claims and the insurance companies only pay wholly for successful claims which exceed the excess amount. However, this aspect is rarely known or publicised so no wonder that most people think that "everything will be paid for by insurance". Another aspect of the "compo" culture in the UK is that people are led by the media and the ambulance chasers to believe that they will automatically get money by claiming after any misfortune. The reality is that only a proportion of all claims made actually succeed, (mostly) in cases where the misfortune involved can be proved to have stemmed from negligence by the company, organisation or person being sued. I've inserted the word "mostly" because of a suspicion that some claims are settled with a payout because it is significantly cheaper than proceeding to a court case even in cases where defending against the claim is very likely to be successful. The cost of dealing with claims, including frivolous and unsuccessful ones, can be considerable for employers. However, for most employers I bet that such costs are rarely made known or considered. The final aspect of this response is the issue of why insurers don't do more to persuade/coerce employers to improve their health and safety performance and thus take positive steps to prevent or reduce the numbers and severity of accidents and ill-health and consequent claims. Perhaps part of the answer lies in the high premiums and excesses imposed by insurers. As long as insurers can continue to pay out when required without denting the anticipated profits from the premiums they collect, they probably have little incentive to do more. If a major disaster or ill-health trend occurs to rock this scenario the insurers moan like hell and simply push up the premiums again. How many insurers talk to the top people running companies and other employing organisations and offer them clear incentives such as reductions in premiums in return for positive improvements in health and safety? If this could be done, surely it would help to influence the top people to give better support to those of us in health and safety in our role of advising, coaxing and training managers, supervisors and employees about their respective responsibilities for managing health and safety!

Posted By peter gotch To reinforce Arran's point an extract (slightly edited to remove some comment on requirements which should be obvious to most of those on this forum) from Masons solicitors excellent Health & Safety Bulletin (4 July 2002) which you can register for on line at www.masons.com "Two weeks ago a small South-West contracting firm was forced into liquidation after its insurance broker was unable to obtain liability insurance from the insurance market. Today we are informed that a Scottish contracting company is also being forced to close because it cannot renew its insurance. Masons has today been told that over 100 construction companies in the UK are now “seriously at risk” of having to close their doors due to lack of liability cover. In recent years there has been a marked reduction in the availability of liability insurance in the UK, with insurers pulling out of the market and the collapse of providers such as Independent Insurance Company. These events come on top of large settlements for asbestos, vibration and occupational deafness and record payouts for injury victims (This week saw an out of court settlement to a worker injured on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link of £1.4 million). The message coming from the insurance industry seems to be clear: companies with a poor health and safety record are going to find it difficult, if not impossible, to obtain liability cover in the future...... ....To obtain liability cover in future, insurers will require evidence of a good claims history and adequate management of risks. Only companies who have the systems outlined above in place will be in a position to provide the required evidence and obtain insurance cover. The unavailability or high cost is likely to tempt contractors into illegally operating without liability insurance. From April 2002, the Health and Safety Executive have taken over the role of ensuring that the principal contractor displays valid liability insurance certificates for every contractor working on site. It is essential therefore, that principal contractors check and regularly re-check the validity of their sub-contractors’ liability insurance." As an aside one of Masons key H&S team is an active MIOSH. Peter

Posted By Ken Lucas One aspect of the issue I experienced with my previous company - major global American owned corporation - was that they began to notice this claims culture problem about 8 years ago and found it getting out of control and therefore affecting premiums. What became apparent in communications from "across the pond" over the following 6 to 12 months was the sudden high levels of disciplinary action, sometimes very severe, being invoked against employees after an accident/incident. 8 years on, the result is a major reduction in accidents, indeed one US unit has gone 7 years without an LTA mmmmm!. No problems now with EL here, but having visited the unit sometime ago not surprisingly, low morale, mediocre production and high staff turnover was evident. What price safety? I sincerely hope that all us OS&H professionals will be aware of this situation occurring which I acccept is more likely to appear in major organisations. Hopefully we will all insist that our management continue to follow a true, just and fair approach to all. Ken

Posted By Allan St.John Holt In the interests of the spread of information, some readers may not be aware of the excellent news Website that gives links to virtually all English-language news media, and offers some good headlines. Often these are on safety topics and 'compo'. Have a look at www.drudgereport.com - just now I found this link to the story of a man sueing an airline because he found himself sitting next to a person of, er, over-large build. http://www.nbcsandiego.c...856320020801-110813.html will get you straight to the story. Good thread this - politics demand no comments from me at this juncture! Allan

Posted By Ashley Williams Well Im not sure if IOSH will let this on the site. Its a true story of an WRULD claim, but is a little dodgy due to the reasons, but here goes: - Phone Sex Operator Wins Suit Fort Lauderdale, FL -- A Florida phone sex operator has won a worker's compensation settlement claiming that she was injured after regularly pleasuring herself at work. During the course of her claim for workers'compensation benefits, the 40-year-old employee of Fort Lauderdale's CFP Enterprises Inc. said she developed carpal tunnel syndrome - also known as repetitive motion injury - in both hands from pleasuring herself as many as seven times a day while speaking with callers. The woman used one hand to answer the telephone and the other to note customers' names and fetishes and to give herself an orgasm during the verbal exchanges. In her petition for workers' compensation benefits, filed with Florida's Department of Labor and Employment Security, the woman claimed that she received her injury from "repetitive use of the phone." She claimed weekly benefits of $267 a week and also asked to be reimbursed for $30,000 in medical bills after a neurosurgeon operated on her hands to relieve her pain. Talk about rolling up your sleeves and getting into one's work.

Posted By Brian Dawson But Bob, it does permit "the provision of information, instruction, training and supervision" when other physical measures are "not practicable".

Posted By Jay Joshi It is not only PUWER 98, but also PUWER 92 that has the same Regulation 11 in the context of Dangerous parts of machinery and hierarchy of control measures for protection. It was PUWER 92 that revoked all but regulation 9 (Training) and the schedule of The Abrasive Wheels Regulations 1970, which were finally revoked by PUWER 98! Obviously PUWER 92 had transitional arrangements etc. Regulation 11 of PUWER in essence has a hierarchy of control measures for protectiom from dangerous parts of machinery that I cannot find in any significant conflict with the requirements of the now revoked Abrasive Wheels Regulations.

Posted By Ken Lucas Apologies raising this again but some news out today on the BBC website - not good especially for SME's. Obviously this is not unexpected but maybe worth a read if only for information purposes. Available on: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2206862.stm Ken